Healthcare's Advantage in the Move Toward Predictive Modeling

Industries like manufacturing and marketing are using data to predict outcomes, which is something that is of obvious value to the healthcare industry. Healthcare has been rigorously collecting data for a long time, so the historical data needed to predict future outcomes already exists—it just needs to be digitized, organized and built into workflow. Once that happens, data can help providers make predictions that can improve outcomes.

For instance, car manufacturers are able to predict when a machine will fail by monitoring data from vibrations on cam shafts, engine temperatures and other areas. If you translate that to the human body—just another type of machine— having different types of data can help draw insights about probable outcomes, like whether a patient may be at risk for readmission.

No. The idea that a hospital is going to become a Level 7 analytics powerhouse may be an aspirational goal, but it can only achieve that by starting somewhere.

Healthcare data is such that there is no “last source,” meaning it's always being collected. There's no perfect point at which you can start creating analytics, because there's always new data to be added. Start with the data you have, gain some insights, and keep building on that to make more accurate predictions.

The value is the insights, and you get the insights by performing analytics on this great data. So if you're Truven Health and you have 200 million lives in your database, you can start applying data mining techniques on those to start coming up with interesting predictions.

The healthcare industry can apply predictive analytics to change the care process and patient outcomes. Predictions are interesting, but where they really add value is when they enable providers to optimize a patient interaction or intervene in the patient's care to change or improve the outcome. If hospitals can use the data and analytics to predict certain outcomes, they have the power to react before it happens, and promote it or prevent it. Applied in a clinical setting, this approach can prevent adverse drug interactions or readmissions, shorten the length of stay, or help control a chronic condition.

ABOUT TRUVEN HEALTH

We're dedicated to delivering the answers our clients need to improve healthcare quality and access, and reduce costs. Our unmatched data assets, technology, analytic expertise, and market-wide perspective have served the healthcare industry for more than 30 years. For more information, please visit truvenhealth.com.